Available thesis topics

Students interested in topics related to usable security and privacy have the opportunity to do their master theses / bachelor theses / practical research project (Einzelpraktikum) at the Research Institute CODE (Bundeswehr University Munich).

We offer a large variety of topics, including but not limited to:

• Behavioral Biometrics
• Social Engineering
• Usable Security in Smart Homes
• Security and Virtual Reality
• Novel Security Mechanisms based on Gaze
• Novel Authentication Mechanisms

If you are interested in working with us, please get in touch with Dr. Ken Pfeuffer.

Details

Liebe Studieninteressierte,

im Rahmen eines Forschungsprojektes untersuchen wir das Interaktionsverhalten mit Smartphones. Dazu suchen wir Teilnehmer für eine kurze Online-Studie (Bearbeitungsdauer: 5 Minuten).

Um an der Studie teilzunehmen, rufen Sie bitte den folgenden Link mit ihrem Smartphone auf:
Online Studie zu Smartphone Interaktion.

Bei Rückfragen wenden Sie sich bitte an Kai Lebruschka.

Besten Dank für die Teilnahme!

Details

Problem Statement

Usable security for virtual and augmented reality systems (VR/AR) is an area that is relatively underexplored. This thesis aims to investigate the feasibility of authentication mechanisms for VR/AR, while considering the usability and security aspects, specifically potential attacks.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR/AR hardware and software
• Get familiar with authentication techniques
• Find and study related literature
• Develop\reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

Problem Statement

Our homes are currently equipped with ubiquitous computing services, be it our smart phones, smart TVs, Alex, or lifelogging devices. The availability of these devices offers novel opportunities for user authentication, as well as raises privacy concerns and potential novel security attacks. This thesis, aims to explore the raised opportunities and challenges from the availability of smart devices in our daily vicinity.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR/AR hardware and software
• Get familiar with authentication techniques
• Find and study related literature
• Develop / reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

Problem Statement

Rendering the user’s body in virtual reality increases immersion and presence – the illusion of ‘being there’. Recent technology enables determining the pose and position of the body to render them accordingly while interacting within the virtual environment. However, it is unclear how users perceive different avatar styles. Additionally, how any manipulation in the avatars representation would influence the users’ states. In this thesis, we aim to explore the influencing factors of avatar perception.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR and OptiTracker hardware and software
• Find and study related literature
• Develop / reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

Problem Statement

In the 21st Century, mental health disorders like stress, anxiety and depression have become a part of our daily lives. Current digital systems are largely blind to users’ stress states. Systems that adapt to users' states show great potential for creating novel user experiences. However, most approaches for sensing stress, involve obtrusive technologies, such as physiological sensors attached to users' bodies and not yet adapted to VR/AR. In this thesis, we aim to explore unobtrusive sensors for detecting stress, while considering VR/AR setups.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR/AR hardware and software
• Get familiar with stress and affective computing
• Find and study related literature
• Develop\reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

Problem Statement

In the 21st Century, mental health disorders like stress, anxiety and depression have become a part of our daily lives. Current digital systems are largely blind to users’ stress states. Systems that adapt to users' states show great potential for creating novel user experiences. In this thesis, we aim to explore unobtrusive sensors for detecting stress and approaches of stress management in VR/AR setups.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR/AR hardware and software
• Get familiar with stress and affective computing
• Find and study related literature
• Develop\reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

Description:

Longitudinal studies in the wild face high drop-off rates. Also, most mobile sensing applications that passively log user data over multiple weeks lack any type of benefit for the user, except monetary compensation. Thus, one currently ongoing effort in the PhoneStudy mobile sensing project is to leverage a user's logged data and present it in a way that triggers an intrinsic motivation to stay in the study.

In this work, your task is to evaluate whether fun fact memes created from the user's log data. We want to find out whether they are entertaining and curiosity-fostering enough, to reduce the drop-off rate of longitudinal mobile sensing studies.

Your work consists in:

• literature review in data presentation, engagement, opportune interventions
• design and implement a fun fact meme data feedback system within the Phone‌Study android app
• evaluate its effect on the study participants in a field study
• writing a thesis and presenting your results to an audience

You need:

• Strong programming skills in Android

Details

We're looking for a practical research student for user research and UI design in the context of an interdisciplinary research project at the intersection of Physics, Biology, and Computer Science. You will be working as part of a team of researchers and students from these domains.

Tasks:

• UI design and information visualization: Employ a user-centered design process to design a touch-based UI for a portable measurement instrument for cell research, including aspects such as information visualization and measurement control.
• User research: Adequately inform the design choices by assessing and considering needs and preferences of a variety of target user groups.
• Prototyping: Create suitable prototypes for the user-centered design process and for presenting the developed designs to various stakeholders.
• A first design prototype and insights from user interviews exist to get you started.

Requirements:

• Interest in interdisciplinary work, innovative technology, and cell research
• Background in human-computer interaction, information visualization, and/or user interface design
• Practical experience with user-centered design processes and UI/UX design methods and tools
• Teamplayer, independent scientific work, creative problem solving

The project is initially offered as an “Einzelpraktikum” for Master students (Media Informatics, MCI) for one or two semesters (6/12 ECTS, respectively).

Interested?

Send your application with transcript of records and examples of your UI design work via email to Dr. Daniel Buschek.

Details

Effizienz ist ein wichtiger Faktor der Usabilityforschung. Im Allgemeinen beschreibt die Effizienz eines Systems den Aufwand, welchen ein Nutzer erbringen muss, um eine bestimmte Aufgabe zu erfüllen. Effizienz wird meist in Zeit gemessen und evaluiert.

Die wissensbasierte Authentifizierung (bspw. PIN) stellt ein Beispiel für eine solche Aufgabe dar. Als Maß der Effizienz dient hier in der Regel die Zeit, welche für die korrekte Eingabe eines Passwortes/PIN benötigt wird. Neue Erkenntnisse deuten jedoch darauf hin, dass es neben der aktiven Eingabe weitere Phasen gibt, welche sowohl die gemessene als auch die gefühlte Effizienz des Mechanismus beeinflussen. Dabei ist neben der reinen Existenz dieser Phasen auch das Verhältnis der Phasen zueinander maßgebend für die User Experience.

In diesem Einzelpraktikum soll der Einfluss der verschiedenen Authentifizierungsphasen auf die Effizienz untersucht werden. Dafür sollen mehrere Modifikationen eines PIN-Eingabesystems entwickelt und im Feldtest studiert werden.

Aufgaben:

1. Literaturrecherche / selbstständiges Aneignen von Fachwissen
2. Ausarbeitung der zu testenden Konzepte (im Team)
3. Entwicklung der Studiensoftware (Android oder iOS)
4. Planung und Durchführung der Nutzerstudie (im Team)
5. Analyse und Aufbereitung der Studienergebnisse

Bei Erfolg des Projektes besteht die Möglichkeit an einer internationalen Publikation mitzuwirken.

Details

Description

This projects purpose is to investigate in building a full body tracking system based on self-made trackers which are usable by the HTC VIVE and its Lighthouses. We want to compare the original HTC VIVE tracker with a varying amount of self-made trackers in order to use it for VR sport analysis.

Tasks

• Building a set of at least 10 tracker based on the enclosed literature
• Implementation of an application for testing purposes
• Compare the existing Tracker with the self-made tracker in terms of usability for VR sport analysis

Preferred qualification

• Experience in hardware and software prototyping
• Experience in C# programming for Unity 3D
• Interest in performing experiments
• Interest in performance enhancement in sports

Suggested Reading

• The HiveTrackers will serve as the foundation for the self-made trackers Tracker foundations
• This project can help to create suitable sensors Sensor foundations

Details

Gaze-based head gestures are a hands-free interaction technique using the occulo-vestibular reflex. A bachelor thesis showed already that this interaction technique works for checking checkboxes and answering dialogs.
This thesis should research whether advanced interaction, such as drag & drop operations, using scrollbars and manipulation of 3D objects, is possible with gaze-based head gestures.

Tasks

• Get familiar with hardware and software
• Find and study related literature
• Develop software supporting the interaction method
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Details

The eye does smooth pursuit movements when following moving objects and such movements can be used for gaze-based interfaces. Typically the pursuit targets are generated by software. In contrast this thesis should research the detectibility of pursuit targets in a video.

Tasks

• Get familiar with hardware and software
• Find and study related literature
• Find or create royalty free videos with moving targets
• Develop software extracting target coordinates from the video and detect pursuit movements with the gaze coordinates given by the eye tracker
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Details

Problem Statement

Public key cryptography is a concept frequently used in computer science - however recent increase in popularity of blockchain systems (e.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum) now requires users outside of this domain to deal with private/ public key cryptography.

The goal of this thesis is to look at public key cryptography from an HCI perspective and analyze interaction concepts for key management. How do (end-) users interact with blockchain systems? How do they deal with the challenges of public key cryptography? And which novel interaction concepts – building on existing work – can be developed to reduce complexity of key management?

Tasks

• Review of related literature
• Analyze existing strategies for key management
• Design and conduct user study
• Develop and evaluate an (improved) concept for key management

Preferred qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Interest in designing and conducting user studies
• Web Development Experience (optional)
• Interest in crypto currencies (optional)

Links

• https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1251435
• https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=7031848
• https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/soups2018/soups2018-ruoti.pdf
• https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.04351
• https://www.scitepress.org/Papers/2017/62700/62700.pdf

If you are interested in they topic, please send an email to michael.froehlich ät unibw.de.
Details

Problem Statement

An increasingly popular method to generate private/ public key pairs for cryptocurrency wallets is Hierarchical Deterministic Key Generation based on a series of random words. These words (mnemonics) can be stored and subsequently used to (re-)generate the original private key file, in case it is lost.

The goal of this thesis is to analyze how users actually store these phrases in practice, to look at the benefits and drawback of different strategies and ultimately develop a new concept for improved handling of mnemonics.

Tasks

• Review of related literature
• Analyze key phrase/ mnemonics storage strategies in practice
  • Online Research
  • User Interviews
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• Design a user study to systematically compare the different strategies
• Develop and evaluate a concept to improve upon existing strategies

Preferred qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Interest in designing and conducting user studies
• Web Development Experience (optional)
• Interest in crypto currencies (optional)

Links

• https://github.com/bitcoin/bips
• https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7966967
• https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-47854-7_31
• https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/58zst0/how_do_you_store_a_digital_backup_of_your_bip39/
• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3327310.80
• https://blockchainjournal.news/how-to-store-a-mnemonic-seed-phrase-from-a-cryptocurrency-wallet/

If you are interested in they topic, please send an email to michael.froehlich ät unibw.de.
Details

Description

In this project, we would like to explore how VR can be used to enhance Dance experiences. From a performer perspective, the VR setting may be used to further visualize movements for example. From the observer perspective, it would be interesting to see whether these enhancements are viewed simply on a digital screen or through an HMD as well. Can it happen synchronously or only one-after-the-other?

The aim of this thesis is to explore this topic.

Tasks

• Review of related work on performer/observer interactions in digitally enhanced social viewing/entertainment/public art viewing (e.g. festival, theater) situations
• Creating an application that tracks fully body movements of VR user
• Enhancing dance movements with a design space of visualizations
• Evaluating the viewing experience from a performer and observer perspective in a small study
• Analyze the data collected from the studies and build valid conclusions

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in performing arts
• Interest in VR
• Good experience with c# 3D authoring tools (e.g.,Unity)

Details

Description

In this project, we would like to create a design space for usable security interactions in AR/VR that are also ergonomically appropriate.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how current interactions affect our body long-term and whether they need improvement.

Tasks

• Review of related work on VR/AR interactions from an ergonomic perspective
• Creating an application that tracks fully body movements of VR user
• Evaluating the long-term effect of VR/AR interactions on the 3D model
• Analyze the data collected from the studies and build valid conclusions

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in VR
• Good experience with c# 3D authoring tools (e.g.,Unity)

Details

Description

HMDs are used in collaborative settings, whereby the HMD user is often confronted with real world users that are not actively participating in the virtual or augmented reality. We are interested how these two different sets of people (HMD users vs. real world users) interact with each other, for example during interruption.

Tasks

• Review of related work on collaboration/CSCW/VR/AR/Mixed working environments
• Developing a prototype of a virtual reality environment that tests a number of designs for controlling user interactions
• Conducting an in-depth investigation of the potential and challenges of a virtual environment in a collaborative setting
• Analyze the data collected from the studies and build valid conclusions

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in VR
• Good / Very good experience with c# 3D authoring tools (e.g.,Unity)

Details

Description

Mid-air gestures enable new and exciting ways of interacting with technology, especially because devices can be interacted with from a distance. Typically, gesturing follows the pointing metaphor, wherein one or both arms are extended to point towards the device, e.g., a display. However, a persistent problem is the expressive and novel nature of the interaction: users may feel uncomfortable gesturing in places wherein they receive unwanted attention. Additionally, prolonged gesturing can lead to fatigue.

The aim of this project is to investigate new approaches to gestural interaction that could make the interaction less visible and less tiresome. In particular, the aim is to investigate gestures that are carried out by holding the arm against the body, instead of reaching out with the arm.

Tasks

• Designing and implementing the overall logic for on-body gestures
• Implementing a prototype public display application
• Designing and conducting a user study

Requirements

• Interest in novel interaction techniques
• Interest in performing user studies
• Good programming skills

Details

Voll immersive Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) wie die Oculus Rift oder die HTC Vive ermöglichen ein direktes Erleben digitaler Daten. Virtuell kann man unter Verwendung dieser Technologien an Orte reisen, die weit entfernt sind, zerstörte Städte als digitale Replikaten erkunden oder Technologien wie den ein Mondfahrzeug erleben. Das deutsche Museum nutzt Virtual Reality um in ihrer Ausstellung den Besucher Dinge zugänglich zu machen. So kann man dort Exponate in ihrem ursprünglichen Kontext erleben, wie etwa die Flugmaschine von Lindbergh.Eine besondere Herausforderung die sich im Museumsalltag ergibt ist der Betrieb des Systems im Zusammen spiel mit den Benutzern. Die internationalen Besucher aller Altersklassen bilden dabei eine sehr diverse Gruppe aus oft naiven Nutzern gegenüber VR Technologie. Die für Museumsinstallationen verfügbaren HMDs stammen aus dem Konsumerbereich und haben den Nachteil, dass sie rein technologisch für Heimanwendungen entwickelt wurden. Zudem ist der Dauerbetreib von HMDs für hohe Besucherzahlen eine Herausforderung, die in den letzten Jahrzehnten Entwicklung von HMD basierten Systemen keine Rolle gespielt hat.Die ausgeschriebene Masterarbeit besteht daher aus drei Teilen.Im ersten Teil wirst du in Zusammenarbeit mit dem deutschen Museum das Nutzererlebnis ind er aktuellen Ausstellung analysieren. Als Grundlage dienen hier für Methoden die aus der Forschung zu Public Displays. Besonders wichtig ist dabei die Analyse nicht auf die Zeit in VR zu begrenzen. Der Nutzerstrom an einer solchen Installaion beginnt mit dem Moment in dem der Nutzer auf das System aufmerksam wird und endet nach der Nutzung des HMDs, wenn der Kunde sein Erlebnis an andere kommuniziert. Dieser Ergebnisse sollen mit einer Literaturrecherche zu Methoden und Gestaltungsrichtlinien von öffentlichen Installationen verbunden werden. Das Ergebnis dieser Analyse ist eine Kategorisierung der Probleme und deren Priorisierung.Im zweiten Teil wirst du zu den erkannten Herausforderungen neuartige Lösungskonzepte erarbeiten. Hierbei können deine Interessen und Fähigkeiten einen wichtigen Einfluss auf das Ergebnis nehmen. Denn im dritten Teil geht es um eine prototypische Umsetzung der erarbeiteten Konzepte für die Installation von VR Hardware im halb öffentlichen Raum. Du wirst die Konzepte in der offizielle VR-Ausstellung des deutschen Museums implementieren und unter realen Bedingungen evaluieren.

Aufgaben:

• Literaturrecherche zu den Themen: Methoden zum Design und Evaluierung von Public Displays. Methoden zum Design und Evaluierung von interaktiven Exponenten in der Öffentlichkeit
• Analyse der Herausforderungen in der VR Ausstellung des Deutschen Museum aus Besuchersicht
• Konzeptionierung von Lösungen zu ausgewählten Problemen
• Implementierung in das VR System
• Evaluierung

Ihre Kompetenzen:

• Sehr gute Kenntnisse im Bereich der User Experience Methoden
• Erfahrung im Durchführen und Auswerten von Nutzerstudien
• Kenntnisse in Unity/ C#
• Erfahrung in der Arbeit mit VR Technologien
• Bereitschaft Studien im deutschen Museum durchzuführen
• Interesse am Umgang mit Menschenn

Details

Description

Mesh simplification intends to preserve the visual appearance of a 3D model while reducing its number of faces. Due to the rise of mobile computing and VR applications, mesh simplification becomes a critical phase in 3D modeling for reducing the rendering complexity of a model. A 3D model designer initially starts with a high-quality model and then simplify its faces using modern 3D software, such as Blender, Maya and etc.

However, aggressively using mesh simplification function in the software quickly leads to visible defects, for instance, holes in the grid, jagged edge, and other similar errors. Thereby a designer must carefully dealing with these result and sometimes manually fix these errors.

In this thesis, you will perform user-centered research to investigate elicitation process, uncertainty and ambiguity of human preferences while mesh simplification in 3D modeling.

Tasks

You should:

• Conduct extensive literature review regarding 3D modeling, human preferences, mesh simplification, and other related fields
• Be able to understand the fundamental ideas of existing mesh simplification functions in industrial software
• Design appropriate user studies and corresponding evaluation strategies or benchmarks separately for general users and expert designers
• Use existing or develop (if necessary) 3D program(s) to conduct the designed user studies
• Perform well-structured evaluation and summarizing all outcomes in a written thesis

Requirements

• Interest in 3D geometric modeling with a background in related software and a programming language
• Understanding the basics of human-computer interaction research approaches
• Concept development and designing appropriate user studies
• Independent scientific work, creative problem solving

Note that the thesis initially starts with biweekly meetings for literature and development discussion in the first two or three monthsand then switch to weekly meeting for user study and result evaluation discussion.

Interested?

Send your application with a transcript of records, examples of your designed models or programming projects (GitHub page is ideal) via email to Changkun Ou.

Initial Reading List

• Marks, J., Ruml, W., Ryall, K., Seims, J., Shieber, S., Andalman, B., Pfister, H. (1997). Design galleries. In Proceedings of the 24th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques - SIGGRAPH'97 (pp. 389-400). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/258734.258887
• Hoppe, H., DeRose, T., Duchamp, T., McDonald, J., & Stuetzle, W. (1993). Mesh optimization. In Proceedings of the 20th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques - SIGGRAPH'93 (Vol. 86, pp. 19-26). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/166117.166119
• Garland, M., & Heckbert, P. S. (1997). Surface simplification using quadric error metrics. In Proceedings of the 24th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques - SIGGRAPH'97 (pp. 209-216). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/258734.258849
• Ju, T., Losasso, F., Schaefer, S., & Warren, J. (2002). Dual contouring of hermite data. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 21(3), 339-346. https://doi.org/10.1145/566654.566586

Useful Link

• Information on Master Theses
• Thesis Template

Details

Problem Statement

A stylus allows designers and artists to provide artistic digital designs. Modern tablets (Surface Pro, IPad) support a stylus, allowing users to design anywhere.

However, creating 3D models can be difficult on 2D displays. 3D modelling requires users to navigate a lot in 3D space - even for drawing simple 3D lines. This project investigates how this process can be more efficient. The idea of this project is to better merge the two processes of navigation and creation.

In this project, the goal is to explore new methods of 3D input in 2D design applications, by using both stylus and multitouch input of the user. The two main work-tasks will be 1) creating a basic drawing prototype with new interaction methods, and 2) to explore what kind of new interactions are possible.

Tasks

• Survey of related work
• Conceptual design of methods that allow users drawing of 3D sketches
• Design and implement a drawing application that integrates the methods
• Evaluation of the application in a user study
• Report of the project into the thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Interest in design, drawing, and artistry
• Experience in programming of 2D/3D GUI (E.g., Java processing)

Details

Problem Statement

Companies such as Oculus, Apple, or Microsoft are working on AR devices that may become an integral part in the daily life of the future. How the user interface may look like is still an open question, it may involve novel methods of input. In this project, we explore the use of eyes for interaction with the digital augmented information. How can the eyes be utilised to interact with digital information that are laid over the real world?

In general eye based interaction has been long investigated in the field of human-computer interaction. The eyes are one of the fastest input modalities, and work in unity with the user’s hands. Future AR devices, through glasses, have a high potential to have eye-tracking integrated and it is therefore imaginable that the eyes play an integral part in the interaction with the augmented reality.

The project is exploratory, and strongly focuses on the interaction design and building of prototypes. It involves iterative prototyping from basic ideas to mature user interfaces with close feedback rounds with the team (e.g., 1 or 2 times per week). It is also possible to get hands-on support on the implementation from team members. Ideas can be generated quickly with the team, and evaluated quickly with small prototypes. The goal is to create the most dynamic, fastest, and world-class user interface for AR. Inspirations can come from various media, e.g. Minority Report, IronMan, or Ready Player One.

Tasks

• Comprehensive survey of related work
• Setup of an AR device with integrated eye tracker (e.g., Hololens)
• Iterative development of the interaction concepts (with the team) and software prototypes (Unity c-sharp)
• Evaluation of final prototypes
• Analysis and report of study design

Preferred qualifications

• Interest UI design and Unity programming
• Scientific work and UI research
• Interest in novel input modalities and devices

Suggested reading

• Ken Pfeuffer, Jason Alexander, Ming Ki Chong, Yanxia Zhang, and Hans Gellersen. 2015. Gaze-Shifting: Direct-Indirect Input with Pen and Touch Modulated by Gaze. In Proceedings of the 28th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology (UIST '15) https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2807442.2807460
• Ken Pfeuffer, Benedikt Mayer, Diako Mardanbegi, and Hans Gellersen. 2017. Gaze + pinch interaction in virtual reality. In Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (SUI '17) https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3131277.3132180
• Mikko Kytö, Barrett Ens, Thammathip Piumsomboon, Gun A. Lee, and Mark Billinghurst. 2018. Pinpointing: Precise Head- and Eye-Based Target Selection for Augmented Reality. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18) https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3173655

Details

Problem Statement

Virtual Reality is gaining more and more importance in our daily lives as we allow ourselves to be immersed in a simulated environment. Among its many useful application, VR can be used to carry out meetings among group of people or even be used in E-learning where the participants can be aided. Gatherings can also extend to examples such as 'Skype Session with family', 'Gathering with friends' etc. During such group meetings, where the environment is essentially a multi user environment involving interaction between participants, it is important that each participant can be completely immersed in the environment and for that, interaction and visualization techniques need to be developed. The aim of the thesis is to explore the interaction and visualization techniques for social gatherings.

Tasks

• Comprehensive survey of related work
• Get familiar with hardware and software
• Conceptual design of interaction and visual techniques between avatars that enhance the virtual immersion
• Carry out a initial survey using 'Oculus Go' to determine the necessary interaction features for enhancement
• Implementation of the design which successfully integrates the various interface design to enhance group communication in VR
• Evaluation of the design through a user study

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge and interest about VR
• Able to work independently
• Unity Programming

Interested students should get in touch with Radiah Rivu (radiahrivu_at_gmail.com)

Details

Generative music systems are becoming more and more relevant nowadays. In the near future Artificial Intelligences will become evenly equal partners in music making scenarios. Therefore we have to find ways to interact with systems that are able to make their own decisions and have their own creative mind. Established communication with human musicians are eye-contact, gestures, verbal expressions.How can we communicate with digital musicians, how can they communicate with humans?

Tasks:

• Development of interaction concepts for the handling of AI/generative systems in a musical context.
• Implementation of a functional prototype that demonstrates the basic concept.
• Conducting a study with students.

Requirements:

• Interest and experience in music theory.
• Experience in programming and hardware-prototyping.
• Ambition to delve into hardware and software.

Suggested Reading:

• Yamaha Artificial Intelligence (AI) Transforms a Dancer into a Pianist
• Mateas, M. (2001). Expressive AI: A hybrid art and science practice. Leonardo, 34(2), 147-153.
• De Mantaras, R. L., & Arcos, J. L. (2002). AI and music: From composition to expressive performance. AI magazine, 23(3), 43.
• Francois, A. R., Chew, E., & Thurmond, D. (2007, June). Visual feedback in performer-machine interaction for musical improvisation. In Proceedings of the 7th international conference on New interfaces for musical expression (pp. 277-280). ACM.

Details

User interfaces facilitate interaction with digital content. Concepts such as "Undo" make it possible to reverse actions that did not have the desired effect. But what would interfaces and the corresponding interactions look like if irreversible actions were central components of interaction design? In this thesis a design exploration should be performed that focusses on materials like paper which affordances lead to actions such as tearing, crumpling, folding, punching holes, etc.. How can familiar concepts such as punch cards or origami help to design intelligible interaction metaphors, that create commitment to the actions we as users perform with technology? What impact will such concepts have on prospective actions?

Tasks:

• Concept Development.
• Design Experimentations.
• Prototyping.
• Evaluation in form of a User Study.

Requirements:

• Prototyping Experience.
• Interest in Design and UX Design.

Suggested Reading:

• Zimmerman, John, Jodi Forlizzi, and Shelley Evenson. "Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI." Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, 2007.
• Auger, James. "Speculative design: crafting the speculation." Digital Creativity 24.1 (2013): 11-35.
• Cox, Anna L., et al. "Design frictions for mindful interactions: The case for microboundaries." Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2016.

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Description

Developing an Android app for predicting personality traits via smartphone usage

In the PhoneStudy project, an interdisciplinary team consisting of psychologists, statisticians, and computer scientists develop an Android app, which tracks and logs the user’s smartphone behaviour to predict personality traits. For example, we track the number of users’ calls, sms, and app usage, which might predict how extraverted the user is. The app will be distributed among participants in spring 2018, which will then use the app for several months. There are several tasks for media informatics students in this project (cf. below), from which you can choose. Please contact me when you are interested in the project and will give you more details.

Tasks

You can choose between different tasks:

• Configuring and working on the server, its scalability and stability, as well as the data base (MariaDB)
• Working on the internal web based front end of the server, which depicts the current status of participants and logged data
• Further develop the app: integrating new features and fixing current bug
• Quality management: Developing automatic testing scripts

Minimum requirements

• Interested in interdisciplinary projects
• High communication skills, especially willing to communicate interdisciplinary
• Able to work independently
• Previous experience with server configuration, (Android) app development, web development, data bases (depending on the chosen task)
• High frustration tolerance

Details

Description

A growing body of research shows that personality traits can be automatically inferred from users' digital texts, e.g. conversations with chat bots or social media posts. Like other personal data, we think that users' personality data might be captured in the future without users' knowledge and out of their control. This raises, in our opinion, ethical and privacy concerns and might potentially lead to misuse. We assume that depending on the context, users might not be comfortable with being profiled and its potential consequences. Together with you, we want to find out, which coping strategies users would employ to avoid being profiled by intelligent algorithms, i.e. how they try to ``trick'' the algorithm.

Tasks

The thesis comprises of the following tasks:

• Conduct an extensive survey of related research with a focus on personality assessment and attitude towards data sharing.
• Design a suitable online survey based on previous research to collect coping strategies
• Recruit n = 300 participants, who fill out the online survey
• Evaluate the findings using qualitative and quantitative research analysis methods.

Details

Machine Learning algorithms find spreading use in normal software development.Tuning these algorithms to yield optimal solutions can be a daunting task though,heavily reliant on experience or trial and error.

There are essentially three main approaches for this challenge:

• full automation, e.g. in Google's AutoML, where optimal configurations are learned using again machine learning
• rule based where experts try to identify more or less general rules for improving ML performance
• interactive using human intelligence

This thesis focusses on the last of those three: Your task is to create visualizations that represent the current and prevous configurations of an ML algorithm. The goals is to help a software development make an informed decision how to further tune the algorithm based on its configuration history.

Your work consists in:

• Brainstorming how to visualize configurations
• Prototyping one or more visualizations
• Evaluating the prototypes in a user study
• Writing a thesis and presenting your results to an audience
• (Optional) co-writing a research paper

You need:

• Strong communication skills in german and/or english
• Good knowledge of at least one machine learning algorithm
• Knowledge of information visualization techniques

Details

Maintaining an overview of large software projects can be hard.Large modules, complex dependencies, sub-projects etc. are hardto comprehend on first glance.
An established method to cope with complex hierarchies areinterfaces with semantic zoom.

In this thesis you will explore how semantic zoom and zoomableuser interfaces (ZUIs) can be used to improve software engineering.After analyzing existing work, you will create a prototype, which youwill evaluate in a user study.

Your work consists of:

• literature review on ZUIs, software engineering tools
• designing and implementing a prototype of a ZUI for software engineering
• evaluating the user interface in a user study
• writing a thesis and presenting your results to an audience

You need:

• Strong communication skills in english
• Experience with User Interface design
• A good understanding of software architecture, design, and engineering
• Good knowledge of user testing methods

Details

Communication is a key challenge when collaborating on large, complex software systems.In this thesis you will explore how phyiscal objects can help developers communicatethe architecture and design of their software to other developers and non-experts.

Your work consists in:

• Brainstorm visualization ideas
• Design and prototype physical artifacts that represent software design
• Evaluate these designs regarding their benefits for communication and comprehension
• Writing a thesis and presenting your results to an audience
• (optional) Co-writing a research paper

You need:

• Strong communication skills in german and/or english
• A good understanding of software architecture, design, and engineering
• Basic knowledge of rapid prototyping, e.g. CAD, 3D printing, etc.
• Good knowledge of user testing methods

Details

The intent and the steering behavior of the driver is important to prevent accidents on the highway. During the thesis you will collect driver information on the driving simulator and then use this data to predict the driver’s driving intent.

This thesis includes:

• Literature review
• Driving data collection with the simulation tool Carmaker or Unity and Head pose/Eye tracking with Tobii
• Evaluating the data to find the best features to predict driving behavior
The thesis might be written in English or German.
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